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| Photo by Sgt. Albert Howard (retired) of Benton, TN |
Remember the Forgotten
By Heather Cayless, 04.19.07
For many people the war in Iraq elicits feelings of anger and regret. The fourth anniversary of the war, which passed this March, elicited anti-war demonstrations around the country.
Protestors feigning death held die-ins spreading themselves on the ground to commemorate the many whose lives have been lost. Congressmen and Senators on both sides of the aisle called troops to be pulled out as soon as March 2008. And in Boston one woman carried a sign summing up the anti-war view: “The war is over when we leave Iraq.”
But unfortunately, the war in Iraq will not be over just because we leave. The problems encountered have far exceeded U.S. troop loss. The personal loss and suffering of U.S. citizens is minute compared to that of the Iraqis who live with violence and death everyday. To leave now, or prematurely, would condemn hundreds of people to a torturous and anguishing death.
The refugee problem is quickly becoming one of the most significant obstacles in the Iraqi war. Thousands of people, mostly minorities, are fleeing the country in droves and there is nowhere for them to go. Countries like Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia have been flooded with refugees and are subsequently closing their borders. Even worse, the U.S. has only accepted 466 refugees since 2003. In our haste to get out of what the media has dubbed a disaster, we are abandoning people who desperately need us to protect them.
Chaldo-Assyrians (Iraqi Christians) comprise almost 40 percent of the refugees fleeing the country although they are less than four percent of the overall population. In the late 1990s Iraqi Mandaeans (followers of John the Baptist) numbered roughly 60,000 in the country, but today there are less than 5,000 left in the country.
For those who have made it to a third country like Syria or Jordan, life is not much better. They are often still in the minority with limited or no legal rights. Christians cannot worship openly and freely, and in some places they are still severely persecuted. After 3 months their visa expires, and they are vulnerable to exploitation and abuse with no possible recourse or protection.
Many families have lost husbands and sons in the fighting leaving the women to care for their families. Jobs are scarce, and even scarcer if the employee is a woman. Many mothers are left with no choice but to prostitute themselves, often selling their only possession.
Although life in refugee camps is horrendous, many lack basic necessities, every refugee remembers what life was like in Iraq. Mimi Assoofi, in an interview with George Jaksa of the “Flint Journal,” worried about the situation facing her family back in Iraq. A few months earlier her brother Ghassan Yousif, 52, “was pulled out of his car, beaten and abducted for ransom.” In another town, a young boy of only 14 years was kidnapped and crucified by Islamists.
The systematic targeting of Iraq’s Christian population is slowly bringing about their annihilation. The push to withdraw troops will leave these people vulnerable to every sadistic, hateful whim of their persecutors. Iraq will continue to deteriorate into chaos under the division of minority groups as they gather together in a feeble attempt to defend themselves.
Unfortunately, there is something more tragic than the push to withdraw troops by 2008. Iraq’s Christians have been largely been forgotten by Christians in the West. We are more concerned with war theories and the U.S. budget than the fact that millions of dollars for refugee resettlement were recently denied by Congress.
It is time to start remembering those Christians in Iraq who are suffering under an immense burden. Instead of ignoring the consequences of our actions as a nation and continuing to chart a course of abandonment, we need to stand in solidarity with those Christians in Iraq.
